Not For Me
by Onyx-Wildcat
Summary: Shadows swell and twist, breathing, living... Jack's alone...and the darkness is waiting to find her... Will Riddick be able to save her?


**Title:** Not For Me  
**Author:** Onyx Wildcat  
**Fandom:** Riddick  
**Characters: **Jack/Riddick  
**Rating:** R for gore, violence, language and horror.  
**Chapter:** Finished  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Riddick or anything else pertaining to the Riddick Universe. This is merely for entertaining the masses of sillies that are as bad as me.  
**Summary:** _Riddick has a reason to be afraid of the Dark…  
_**Archive:** No  
**Feedback:** It's not required, but I always enjoy what my reader's think ^_^  
**Authors Note:** Something I wrote back on 3'15'07 and forgot I still had it and never posted it. This is not a typical Jack or Riddick story. This is very dark…and you may not like me very much after you read it. You'll see why. On that note, please…enjoy!  
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She walked down the cracked pavement, street twisted and warn as the road seemed to span out into an eternity of darkness. The air felt cold as a chill ran against the exposed flesh of her hands. But she was smarter then that and slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat. She had made a point to take her trench coat with her before she left the house… Not like you could call it a house, in fact you couldn't. It was a shit-hole in the middle of a rat's nest, worst place in town. Not even the druggies, ex-cons, pimps and their hoes stepped foot in that place. Thugs, murderers and the like made a point to physically stay clear of that area she called home. She thought it was funny, and somehow strangely fitting. A place she felt the safest, turned out to be crawling with things that made the creatures that go bump in the night run for the hills. People whispered legends about that place since she first stepped foot on the planet, 'bout seven months back. To her, time didn't matter, and neither did the delusional stories of imbecilic colonists. It always irritated her when someone would try to hit on her, their fake smiles shinning like the badge that used to hang on Johns' chest. Fake badges. Fake people. Liars, cheats, bottom feeders. Fuckin' Mercs. If they weren't, which was almost always the case, they still reminded her of that do-right smile and that nickel-slick badge. Blue eyed devils…the lot of them. Most people on this planet did have light eyes, probably because of the low light conditions. Must have really fucked with them when she wore pitch black goggles to keep herself guarded from them. She didn't really need them, the lighting was perfect, but she loved making people uneasy. Loved a good mind fuck to start off her day. Sure, she despised sunlight of any kind, hated it since the day she barely escaped T2. She had enough sunlight for that brief and yet spine chilling time she had on that god forsaken rock.

"Baby, you gotta light?" She heard the man say and turned toward the sound of his voice. It was pathetic, an attempt at getting her attention just so that he could try his wannabe player routine.

She sighed and gave him a hard look through her goggles, knowing that he was uneasy for the simple fact that he couldn't see her eyes. Unable to read what might be going through her mind. "You need a light?" She repeated the question and smirked, noting he had no cigarettes. "You need a cigarette for a lighter buddy."

"Oh…yea, well I guess I was hoping you had one. You seemed like the type to enjoy sucking on a thick cancer stick." He mused darkly between polished teeth. Something she definitely was not used to seeing. The guy had a perfect set of teeth…which was his first mistake.

Pressing her lips together in thought, her hands well hidden within the deep pockets of her trench coat, she canted her head at him. "Is that right?" She paused to take in his every detail. The way his hair seemed too clean cut, his baggy and ripped clothes looking too clean, too fresh. Even his scent was off. The only people she knew besides herself, that bathed on a regular basis stayed in doors at this time of night. This guy didn't even look like a cop. He was different. And she was suddenly becoming aware of the fact that he wasn't alone. "Sorry to disappoint you buddy, but I'm all out." Her flat tone should have been enough to get him to turn the other cheek, but he didn't.

Starting to walk away she heard the distinct click of a gauge behind her, as well as several others all around her. _Fuck. I don't need this tonight._

"Turn around slowly, hands where we can see them." The man spoke in a deeper tone, firmer and commanding. It just irritated her.

Turning on the heel of her steel toe boots, her hands raised slowly into view. "Damn, and here I thought I'd actually enjoy my walk tonight. Guess it's just not in the cards, huh?"

"Shut up. We're not here for conversation." He snarled and tilted the barrel of his gauge toward her, emphasizing his point that he wasn't dicking around.

"Hey dude, you started it." She retorted with a sly smirk inching across her lips. "And don't tell me, three man crew this time?"

"Boss this place is giving me the creeps." Another voice, higher pitched, younger, maybe in his late teens, sounded to the man's right. Her eyes found the youngster with ease. And just as she thought, the newbie Merc was a lighter shade of pale. He was scared.

"Butch up, Meat." He shot back to the teenager, never taking his eyes off her. "We've got our orders. Snatch and grab like the books say."

"Where? I didn't know there was a book…"

"Meat shut the fuck up and focus!"

The urge to laugh at this was too great but she kept it in. She just bit her bottom lip and shook her head, trying to hide the amusement on her face. "You're kidding right? You don't know about the good ole snatch and grab routine?" She began in a surprised tone, catching their attention with a seductive ease. Men were so fucking easy, especially Mercs. They think with the money portion of their brain until just the slightest hint of a female gets their attention and Wham! Instant brain change. Blood flow escapes to their pencil dicks and they go into dumb ass mode. Then again, if they were dumb to begin with, like these losers, it was just too easy.

"The whole point to a snatch and grab is simple really." She began to say when another Merc cut her off.

"I didn't ask you for your commentary bitch…"

She ignored the "boss" and let her hands drop to her sides, where they vanished easily into her pockets. "You go in, track down the target and just take them down. Like this for example."

Before the men could react her hands moved at a remarkable speed, lodging two razor edged throwing knives into the "boss'" wrist where he dropped the gauge, and the other dug deeply into the main artery in his neck. He let out a gurgling cough, his eyes widened with terror and fell back with a sickening crack against the pavement. The two men that were left just looked at her with their jaws dropped.

"You see? Piece of cake." She purred with a dark chuckle and stepped forward, grabbed the gauge off the ground and stood upright. The other man that hadn't said a word since the time they met, had his pathetic looking pistol aimed, in a shaking hand mind you, toward her chest. She shook her head and gave him in unimpressed look as she jerked the much larger rifle at his lower body and within seconds shot two rounds through knee caps. He let out an agonizing wail and slumped to the ground as blood, bits of bone and strings of muscle tissue clung to the gaping wounds. It was pretty disgusting but she was used to it by now.

"You gonna be smart and hand me your gauge? I'd hate to blow a hole in such a pretty face." She explained to the last remaining Merc, her voice calm and collected as her face remained a portrait of dark secrets.

"Please…don't kill me. I'm only sixteen. I needed a job, I didn't want this." He stammered as tears began pouring out of his terrified eyes. He had the smaller gauge pointed away from her, the grip offered out to her as he trembled. Probably from shock of seeing someone get killed. It seems to have that effect on everyone their first time.

With a few steps, she closed the gap between them. Snatching the pistol off the ground as she kicked the fallen Merc who was sobbing and moaning from the pain inflicted wounds. "Here, we'll exchange." She announced and offered him the pistol. Patiently, she waited for him to move. Seeing as he was damn near in hysterics, she placed the larger gauge between her thighs, holding firmly. He finally, with a trembling hand, offered to hand her the small gauge in return for the pistol but was stopped short when she snatched the gauge with one hand and took hold of his wrist in the other. With a strong tug she jerked him around and spun him until his back pressed hard against her body. Suddenly, the barrel of the smaller gauge pressed right against his temple causing him to go completely still. "Listen very carefully. You make one fucking move and I'll make a point to blow your fucking skull to pieces."

The smell of urine caught her senses as his bladder released all of its contents. She let out a disgusted growl and kneed him in the lower back, to the left of the spine, fourth lumbar down, sending him face forward into the pavement. He hit the ground with a clumsy splat. His body shaking violently as he tried to get back up on his hands and knees. "I don't wanna die… I don't wanna die…" He repeated over and over and started crawling away from her.

She would have followed suit but caught a shift in the darkness ahead of her. Her body went rigid, as silent as a stone standing against the mists of some long abandoned cemetery. Her eyes widened under the thick black lenses of her goggles as she heard a very distinct sound. It was a noise that should never be heard. The gurgling, hissing groan of the things you should never speak of.

It was _them… _

She wanted to call out to him, tell him to stop but it would have been no use. He had no idea that they were already waiting for him. She took in a deep breath and held it as strange twisting shadows began to dance in a circle around his body. This was the part she always hated. As much as she may have seemed to enjoy killing, seeing this happen…always cut her to the bone. Hearing their moans…slow and gradual sounds that seemed to lift into the still air and consume all rational thought, all ability to think or breathe. It was the sound of the unwanted, the forsaken, the things nightmares are made of. Noises that caused the night to turn away in terror. If she could, she would have booked it in the other direction. But she knew better. She had to stay…she had to watch. If she moved, even an inch, they would come…

The always did…

It was over before it even began. The young Merc had been overwhelmed in a blanket of shadows, swelling churning, muffling his horrified cries. Within the span of a single blink, the shadows dissipated and dissolved back into the surrounding darkness, leaving the steaming bones of his devoured corpse. There was no blood, no flesh, nothing to even indicate he had ever existed. Just his bones, showing a ghostly white under the dim light of the twin moons.

But she could always remember every detail later on, when she heard them follow, just beneath the echoes of her footsteps trailing off behind her into the night. Maybe that's why she felt safe in the area she called home. They only appeared when bad people came around, they only fed off of the lives of those who had sold their souls to the devil himself. Didn't matter if they were young or not. Didn't matter if they were man, woman or child. A deals a deal…and they were the bounty hunters of the dead. The soul reapers. The ones that came in to play when the damned turned their back on the living.

And she was the bait. Ever since she stepped foot onto the planet and found herself in that area of damned, they were drawn to her. They had followed her…

"Wish you guys would've shown up earlier." She exclaimed into the night and lit a menthol Kool, breathing in the smoke with a sigh of relief. "Wouldn't have had to wait so long to get my smoke break."

"You always talk to yourself kid?"

With a roll of her eyes, she recognized that deep baritone voice that appeared directly behind her. "Since it's the only intellectual stimulation I can get anymore, yea I guess I do."

"Intellectual Stimulation huh…you sure that's the one you're aiming for? You been pent up and alone for how long now Jack? Few years?"

"Why don't you do yourself a favor and fuck off." Jack countered with an air of annoyance to her voice and released a large cloud of smoke into the air, and turned her body in his direction, the gauges hidden away somewhere within her trench coat. Her covered gaze met his familiar slivers of light and smirked. "Since you're so good at leaving, ain't that right Riddick?"

"You still haven't lost your edge kid, I like that. Shows a sense of character."

"You have no idea…" Jack growled under her breath while taking another hard drag of her cigarette. A swirl of smoke snaked out from her parted lips as she watched him begin to advance toward her. "Why you here? Don't you know this place is for the damned and not shiv happy ex cons?"

"Don't I get a better greeting then that?" Riddick replied with a hint of smirk playing on his mouth. He was looking over Jack with a different perspective. Clad in black, hair long and dark, tied back in a firm braid that ended past her ass. Eyes covered with goggles that looked better made then the ones he carried. She was packing; a pistol, two gauges, one larger with nastier rounds, a military edition piece he'd love to get his hands on.

He had seen the brief encounter with the small group of Mercs from a safe distance. He didn't want to interfere with nature's design. If she was anything like he anticipated, she would have had no problem with just a three man crew. And he was right. She had gone through the motions of a skilled killer without so much as batting a long eye lash.

Another deep drag and with a flick of her wrist, tossed the butt to the ground straight into a pool of blood. She listened to it sizzle before she looked back up into the eyes of the one man who had been nothing more then a ghost in her fading memory. "How about you stop ogling over me and get the hell outta here."

"Ooh snappy, another trait I admire in a woman."

The urge to kill him began to rise in her blood but she contained it with a cold hard stare. "In about a few seconds the only thing you're going to admire is the tip of my boot as I shove up your sorry ass."

A flash of a second danced by when his hand took hold of her throat and held her still in a grip that warned her he could end her life with just the slightest bit of pressure. "You lose the fuckin' attitude and watch that pretty mouth of yours. You ain't foolin' me with this bad ass front you got up. I know who you really are Jack." He jerked her face within inches from his, glaring into her goggles. "Just a scared little girl hiding behind the shadow of someone you'll never be."

"How about you kiss my white ass." Jack hissed through clenched teeth, making a point to sound out every word with a tone of defiant rage. "You think this is supposed to frighten me? Make my palms sweat like you did with Carolyn Fry? Circle jerk me with a pathetic attempt at a power trip?" Jack paused and didn't look away, she was challenging him. "Fuck…You."

Sounds…swirling within the depths of the darkness. Slithering along the wings of unimaginable horrors, taunting the very essence of sanity, madness induced terror, wanting…waiting. Hungry.

"Riddick…" Her voice changed almost instantly, fearful in a sense. They were coming… "Let me go nice and slow and don't move. Anything you hear or see, ignore it. Please…" She reached up with her right hand and pulled the goggles back and away from her gaze. "Please trust me on this." Jack pleaded with her uncovered eyes that haunted his very dreams.

He knew she wasn't lying to him. He could feel the shift in the air and the strange chill of death's fingertips trailing along his spine. Riddick let up and let his hand drift slowly down her body, only to be stopped when her smaller hand took hold of his, holding him still. "Jack, what's happening." He asked in a whisper of a voice and watched her eyes begin to swell with tears. Something was going very wrong. "Jack…"

Eyes clenched shut, she swallowed the hard lump in the back of her throat when the guttural groans began to creep up all around them, surrounding them in a web of chaos. She knew that this was it… They had finally come for her…

He was brought back when her trembling lips met his in the softest of kiss. But it didn't feel like a hello…it felt like she was saying goodbye.

Tears free fell from her eyes when the shadows began to swarm and swell around them, closing in with their demonic voices, gurgling…waiting. Starving for fresh blood…

"I Love You Riddick…I always have." She opened her eyes and watched his face distort into a look of terror, the color of his skin turning a whiter shade of pale. "…and I always will."

Suddenly she was torn from his grasp with a wail of agony as skeletal like creatures, drifted through the shadows and began to devour her flesh. His mouth hung agape as it seemed to go on forever, even though it was only a split second. He saw her eyes staring back at him within the swarm of ravenous shadows…

He felt his mind snap. "Not for me…"

The shadows vanished as quickly as they came…leaving nothing but a pair of goggles just a few feet away from him. The very same goggles Jack had been wearing… The ones that mirrored his own.

"…not for me…"

**-Fades to Black-**


End file.
